Clean water? Just poke a hole in the ground, and it’ll gush out, right?

Clean water — or the fact that one in eight people today can’t get it — is a hot topic. It might even be trendy to say that we who have it should help provide for those who don’t.

I’m not saying this is a bad thing. It is great, and caring for those in need is key to God’s own character. But I’m learning lately that you can’t just walk into a thirsty community and know exactly how to help them get clean water.

FH attempts to install clean-water systems in some extremely harsh places. One of those is Northern Kenya where, in some communities, drilling a well is pretty much out of the question. Sololo, for instance, sits atop a ton of rock. So one of FH’s strategies there is to catch and collect the precious rain as it falls from the sky. But this gets complicated when you consider how many people need to drink this water and how often it rains.

An earth dam in Sololo, Kenya

Today, in Sololo, people get water from two “earth dams” — reservoirs where animals drink and bathe, women wash clothes, and people fill up jerry cans. The water causes all kinds of illness when consumed. We’ll unpack this topic together over the next few months: the realities of accessing clean water in remote places like Northern Kenya. It can be done!